Swiss to choose their Music Star

The three finalists - Piero Esteriore (left) Carmen Fenk and Mario Pacchioli. SF DRS

Swiss television viewers are set to decide on Saturday who will be crowned the 2004 Music Star in the final round of a reality show.

Three finalists – all hoping to become Switzerland’s newest pop idol – will sing for survival during a live final in Zurich.

Around 3,000 wannabe stars applied to take part in the first-ever Swiss version of a reality format that has become a global television phenomenon.

Like other versions of the programme, Switzerland’s MusicStar seeks to find new musical talent by giving young, unknown singers the chance to show off their vocal talents in front of a television audience.

At the end of each show, viewers are invited to vote by telephone for their favourite candidate.

Record contract

Saturday’s final will see 25-year-old Carmen Fenk from St Gallen battling it out for the ultimate prize – a record contract with the Universal label – against male rivals Mario Pacchioli (22) and Piero Esteriore (26).

The overall winner of MusicStar will be given the opportunity to record an album at studios in New York and Los Angeles.

Two weeks after the grand final, all three contestants – together with fourth-placed Daniela Brun – will take part in a contest in Geneva to decide who wins the right to represent Switzerland at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

A series of prime-time appearances on Swiss television is also guaranteed.

Struggle to survive

But critics of the MusicStar format warn that whoever wins the contest will struggle to survive and make an income as a solo performer in Switzerland.

“Only about 40 to 50 pop stars can make money from their music in Switzerland,” says Bruno Hofer of the record label BMG.

The record of similar reality shows elsewhere in Europe – all of which have sought to create overnight pop sensations – is mixed.

While some winners have gone on to achieve instant chart success and to record critically acclaimed albums, others have disappeared from the music scene as fast as they arrived on it.

Popular entertainment

If nothing else, MusicStar has given Swiss journalists enough material to fill the pages of both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers for weeks on end.

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) – which bought the rights to the MusicStar format – says it is delighted with the success of the show.

The programme is only broadcast in German-speaking Switzerland, but the SBC is not ruling out the possibility of producing a similar version in western Switzerland for French-speaking Swiss.

More than one million viewers tuned in to last week’s semi-final and the show has regularly pulled in a greater share of the audience than the network’s flagship evening news programme.

The director of MusicStar, Adrian Marthaler, rejects criticism that the programme is not fostering genuine musical talent.

“We are concentrating on music and song, and our aim is not expose people to ridicule and humiliation,” he says.

swissinfo

Key facts

MusicStar is based on the “Starmania” format produced by Austrian television.
During the first stage of the contest 24 finalists were chosen from some 3,000 applicants.
The winner – to be announced on February 21 – will win a record contract with the Universal label.

In brief

MusicStar contestants had to be 16 or over and not be already signed to a record label.

Those chosen to take part had to have Swiss nationality or be in posession of a permanent residence permit.

Contestants also had to be able to speak German and understand dialect.